Fingal LEO commits all resources to help Fingal businesses survive Coronavirus crisis

Fingal County Council’s Local Enterprise Office is committing all its resources to help Fingal businesses survive the current Coronavirus crisis.

Some businesses have been forced to close or have seen their sales and income drop significantly in the past week but Fingal LEO has issued a message that they are still there to support them.

 Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Eoghan O’Brien, said helping the local business community was very important in the current circumstances. “Most of the business in Fingal are SMEs and provide a lot of jobs so it is important they get every support they can. The Local Enterprise Office in there to support Fingal businesses and will be a valuable resource for our SMEs in the weeks and months ahead as they deal with this unprecedented crisis,” said the Mayor.

 “All businesses have been massively impacted by the COVID-19 emergency,” said Oisin Geoghegan, Head of Fingal LEO. “It is imperative that our clients know that the LEO Office is still available to support them and our services will be available to them through this emergency.”

In its efforts to help businesses Fingal LEO is expediting payments due to clients and to suppliers and is proactively contacting clients that have been approved to get their payments processed quicker if they are in a position to drawdown.  All repayments due to the Enterprise Office from repayable grants are now suspended and clients are being advised they may defer repayments for an initial three month period. All training courses have been cancelled and refunds will be issued.

“We have cleared the decks and are now recalibrating with the focus being on helping businesses to manage the crisis,” said Mr Geoghegan. “We are offering suitable training courses like digital marketing which can be rolled out online and are looking at other online initiatives.”

“We are also offering one-to-one business continuity mentoring to clients, principally in the areas of HR, Financial Planning and Online Selling.”

LEO is also seeing an increase level of interest in the new MFI Loan Scheme which is offering up to €50,000 with 0% interest for six months and a six month moratorium on repayments. 

 For further information, visit https://www.localenterprise.ie/Fingal/